Academic blogs | Q & A

On Thursday, 16 May 2024, I ran a webinar about Academic Blogging for early career researchers. Prof Mpho-Entle Modise (from SAERA) arranged the event. These are my post-webinar thoughts. Dear academic bloggers, I am very grateful for your time and attention in this academic blogging webinar. Thanks so much for allowing me to both confuse …

Creative Commons Certificate

I’ve been awarded a Creative Commons Certificate after attending the June 2020 Creative Commons (CC) Copyright Course. (Yes, I realise that this is old news). I am a consistent advocate for openness. I find myself regularly recommending CC licenses as a viable alternative to traditional copyright protection. Open licensing allows ed techies to strengthen their …

DH-OER | What have I seen?

Test your understanding of Copyright and Creative Commons Exploring your work I began working with DH OER Champions recently (17 June 2023). I’ve had a wonderful time. Reaching out to people across South Africa . Some who I know directly. Others who were on my Twitter time line (I was very pleased to meet). Others …

Mentorship Charter

A mentorship charter is a useful tool that can assist a mentor and mentee work well together to achieve common goals. This is an outline intended to document the joint purpose/objective, roles and expectations and deliverables for mentors and mentees. During the first mentorship meeting, follow this outline and steps below to record your common understanding.  …

Book Dash Jozi

Book Dash aims to gather creative teams together to write, illustrate, edit and produce a children’s story, in 12 hours. These stories are licensed as creative commons works, which means that anyone can print and distribute these beautiful children’s books, for free. The intention is that the books get into the hands of those who …

10 Red Flags: Things to know before you go…

Some advice from below to my ed techie friends above. Career climbing involves risky routes. Without clear boundaries, an unending 24/7 passage awaits the enthusiastic networked sherpa. The online world, with all its advantages, has little respect for the traditional pathways that once characterized the standard 9-5 job. Watch where you place your feet. Before …

#DigitalInclusion & #FeesMustFall

Internet access does not guarantee Digital Inclusion E-learning has been repeatedly invoked by certain friends, colleagues and practitioners as a “solution” to the #feesmustfall campus shut down. The logic, to them, is clear. If students can’t attend lectures on campus, then let’s capture the content with a video recorder or webcam and then post them onto …

Can tech innovations save education in S.A.?

I’m going to be facilitating a conversation today (Wed 24 August) at LeaderEx about education and innovation. Will be asking questions about high tech tools and whether they are the solution to South Africa’s education crisis. Will be chatting to Warren Hero, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, Enoch Thango, Deputy Principal of Sunward Park High & Mfanelo Ntsobi, Chief …

Split Happens. Goodbye

Final whistle. Game over. Goodbye Wits. I’m a consultant now. Here’s my ‘split lit‘ tale. I arrived in Johannesburg in 2010, just as the Soccer World Cup  was about to start. Jozi seemed golden and Wits, I thought, was ready for the change game. The Elearning, Support & Innovation Unit (eLSI) under the leadership of Prof Derek Keats, DVC of Knowledge and Information …